


Freefall

by survivingheartbeats (midnightbrightlights)



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, I Don't Even Know, Romance, This just kind of happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-03-28 12:38:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13904196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightbrightlights/pseuds/survivingheartbeats
Summary: Hap takes care of a sick Prairie, and her extended stay upstairs becomes an accidental catalyst for the feelings they've been avoiding.





	1. One

As soon as Prairie woke, she wished she hadn’t. Everything on her hurt, right down to the tips of her fingers, and when she swallowed, it burned like fire.  _ What did he do? _ “Homer,” she croaked out, wincing. Speaking felt like someone was dragging sharp rocks and bits of glass over her throat. “Did he gas us again?” She felt horribly lethargic and well, generally just  _ gross.  _ Hap had to have used some new gas on them in this mystery experiment, that was why her thoughts were going around in fuzzy circles and everything ached. But he’d never hurt them before, not like this, he didn’t seem to want to. Prairie winced, aching all over. Critical thinking was beyond her at the moment. 

She heard a scrambling sound that she knew meant Homer was sitting up and coming over to their separating glass wall, but she didn’t even try to turn her aching neck to look at him. 

“Prairie?” she heard him question, confusion in his muffled-sounding voice. She opened her mouth in a yawn that clawed at her throat and emphasized her parched tongue, hearing her ears crackle, but it still felt like she was underwater.

Forcing the words out through her pain, she repeated the question. She’d yet to move an inch from the position she’d woken up in, and she had the distinct feeling that trying to do so would be a mistake. 

“No,” Homer told her, sounding a little baffled. “No, Prairie, nothing happened. Are you okay?”

Prairie let out a muffled groan, shifting slightly. That, it seemed, was too much for her lungs. A violent, wet-sounding cough wracked her frame and she winced, the harsh motion sending bolts of pain through her muscles and her bones. 

“It’s not gas, Prairie,” Homer said worriedly. “But I think you’re sick.”

_ Sick _ felt like an understatement. Prairie couldn’t remember feeling like this since she’d contracted the flu and bronchitis at the same time in the middle of seventh grade. 

“Haven’t been anywhere though,” she complained weakly. No unwashed middle schoolers in the neighborhood to cough on her this time around. The furthest she’d been in months was upstairs to the kitchen. At the risk of sounding whiny, it really wasn’t fair. 

Prairie coughed again, and all thoughts were driven from her head as she tried to get in a breath. Gasping a minute later, she whispered, “Ouch.”

“Hey, Prairie,” Homer’s concerned voice came again. “Come get some water and splash off your face. It might help if you’ve got a fever.”

Given her uncontrolled shivering and the way her teeth kept clacking together loudly inside her skull, Prairie thought that was a likely possibility. Slowly, she obeyed, sitting up through the dull ache in her stomach muscles from coughing, and pushed the blanket from her shoulders even though it only made her shivering worse. She remembered Nancy telling her not to put on too many blankets when she was sick and feverish, though, so maybe that was a good thing. As she swung her legs to the side of the bed, though, a sudden rush of dizziness assailed her, and Prairie gripped the sides of the mattress, swaying slightly. Her vision sparkled, the ground in front of her looking blurry. She pushed herself to her feet slowly, once the worst of the vertigo had passed, and with one shaky step she was falling, the ground taking a sickening tilt out from under her feet.  _ Or was that her? _

She hit hard, her hip smacking full-force into the stone ground, and Prairie cried out softly, gritting her teeth while the impact reverberated through her aching body. It was another unwelcome jolt to her fiercely painful head, and she bit her lip hard for a few seconds.

Homer was yelping her name and now so was Rachel, concern lacing their voices, and their hands hit the glass, both of them pressing against it as if to reach her. 

She didn’t respond, another coughing jag interrupting her before she could. Her lungs convulsed, the harsh motion pummeling at her ribs and further attacking her throat. She couldn’t get a breath in, couldn’t stop her lungs from trying to turn themselves inside out. She coughed longer than her breaths should have allowed, and then she sucked in a desperate, wheezing gasp before it cycled all over again. Involuntary tears pooled in her eyes from the pain and the effort, and it was only worsening her headache.

Prairie coughed again, retching this time, and she vomited bile into the stream she was leaning over, falling forward and bracing herself weakly on her hands at the water’s edge. She thought Scott yelled something, but she couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears and the sound of her own miserable noises. 

When at last the coughing subsided, Prairie raised one hand slowly and pushed a few strands of sweaty blonde hair off of her forehead, feeling as she did so the heat pouring from her skin. She was burning up even to her own touch, even though the shivers still shaking her seemed to insist otherwise.

A mostly involuntary moan left her cracked lips and she let herself lean backward until she was lying flat on the stone, closing her eyes against the light above her. Trying to climb back up onto the bed would only end up with her falling again, she knew. The world around her still felt like it was spinning too much for her to try moving.

“Hey!” A loud thump sounded on the glass and she flinched. “Hey!” Scott roared again. “She’s sick, you fucking bastard, don’t leave her here!”

Scott sticking up for her in his own way warmed her heart, but the noise made her skull want to split open and really she just wanted him to  _ stop _ .

“Scott!” Rachel burst out, to her great relief. “He’s not here, remember? We saw him leave. Just cool it.”

She heard hm kick at his plants once, and then silence. 

“Prairie…” Rachel started, but trailed off. Prairie didn’t answer her. Even with her opportunities for good meals when she cooked for or ate with Hap, she hadn’t been eating enough. She was bordering on just a bit too thin, without the strength or the energy to fight off whatever bug she’d contracted. And she was so  _ tired _ . Prairie laid still on the ground, legs somewhat curled up, and shivered, motionless and unresponsive by choice until her consciousness faded out.

She didn’t know how long she stayed on that floor. She floated in and out of consciousness, periodically hearing the others call her name. Once, she woke to Scott’s shouting again. When she was awake, she coughed, and shivered, and twice more she threw up, though really it was more dry heaving with nothing in her stomach. When she tried to sleep, it was fitful and filled with aches and shivers, and sometimes, too rarely, it was blissful  _ nothing _ . And then she woke, hearing sighs of relief from the others when another coughing bout confirmed that at least she was alive, and the cycle started again.

Lying on the stone in her now-ragged dress with limp hair tangled around her, Prairie did look half-dead when she wasn’t coughing. Her skin was such a shade of white that she looked almost bloodless under the artificial lights, and her lips and her fingertips were a concerning shade of blue-purple. Her eyes looked sunken, painted underneath with black, and she didn’t move except to shiver so hard she thought her bones might turn into chips of ice and shatter, or to lurch forward with a coughing jag.

“She’s going to die in here!” Scott shouted once, and Rachel hushed him quickly, saying something that sounded like,  _ don’t talk about that _ . Prairie wondered vaguely if she would. If this would be the end of her, wasting away and virus-ravaged on the stone floor of Hap’s basement lab, and if she would see Khatun again. Would she be given the choice to return, or was sickness different? Would Khatun heal her? Or would she truly die this time? Would she finally see her father again?

Prairie’s thoughts were interrupted by another call of her name, quiet and desperate and tinged slightly with what might have been fear.  _ “Prairie,” _ she heard Hap breathe out, and then, though her clogged-up ears, the sound of her door unlocking. 

“Took you long enough!” Scott burst out angrily, kicking at something, probably the plants again, Prairie surmised. “Been lying there for  _ days _ and we kept on thinking she was dead!”

She heard Hap’s footsteps approach in a rush across the stone and then he knelt beside her. He could have asked her to come, waited in the doorway like he usually did. Could have made her drag herself. Instead, as she lay here too weak and tired to even lift her head, he got on his knees at her side. She felt his fingers first at the pulse in her neck, blessedly warm to her falsely chilled skin, and then he moved to lay his hand across her forehead, and for a split second, she felt him push a few hairs back. Slowly, she opened her eyes, fighting the urge to squint at the light. She couldn’t let him know she could see. His face was blurry above her, concerned, and she blinked wearily.

“Can you hear me, Prairie?” he asked lowly. “Hear me?”

She nodded minutely, scrunching up her features against the ache in her neck and head. “Mmm,”

Hap’s hands were gentle on her shoulders and under her head, guiding her limp form into a sitting position, propping her up in his arms. Then, she felt one of his arms slide under her knees, and, in a swift motion that sent her reeling with dizziness once more, he swooped her up into his arms and stood, cradling her against his chest. Prairie’s head lolled back limply, hanging back over his arm, but she made the effort to lift it and curl her body into something of a more comfortable position, nestling her head against his bicep to take the pressure off of her neck. He was wearing a crisp shirt and a jacket, the fabric soft against her too-hot cheek, and she remembered Rachel’s words, some indeterminate amount of time earlier.  _ He’s not here. _ Where he’d gone she didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. He was carrying her up the stairs now, still wearing the nice clothes he’d put on for public.

Apparently he hadn’t bothered with the usual, slightly dorky, utility vest before going to her. In her half-delirious state, Prairie wondered if maybe that meant he had a shred of kindness in him somewhere. And then she thought about all of the things he didn’t have to do, but did anyway, and she was reconsidering the size of that shred. Braille on the pantry items, letting her upstairs and into the sun, the way she sometimes got the sense there were words on the tip of his tongue he was biting down on to keep inside. 

She could argue, of course, that he was only doing this so as to placate his subject and keep her compliant, and that it made sense to put Braille on things because what was the use of a housekeeper if she couldn’t tell the difference between the identical-shaped jars? But Prairie thought that if Hap was truly some sadistic, psychopathic monster, he’d get more of a kick out of watching her struggle. He’d take pleasure in her suffering in an airless cage with no sunlight. He would have taken his sweet time coming to check on her, changed first. Or perhaps he would have let her die there. Even if he did want to help heal her, he didn’t need to carry her. She knew he had a wheelchair for them. 

He shifted his arms around her slightly, holding on a little tighter, and, shivering helplessly, Prairie snuggled her face against his chest. After endless hours of feverish misery on cold stone beside cold water, he was so  _ warm _ . She shivered still, but she knew that was the fever. She didn’t feel quite so horrifically frozen with his arms wrapping her up, solid and safe. 

Eyes still closed against the light, she felt him shoulder his way through the unlatched basement door and then, moments later, Hap set her down gently on the soft surface of a bed, and it must have been  _ his  _ bed because she immediately recognized the familiar way the pillowcase smelled. He threw a blanket over her, pulling it up to her chin, and Prairie snuggled into it, reveling in the soft mattress and pillow and the warmth of the blanket. 

“Stay here,” he told her, as if she could possibly be going anywhere. “I’ll be right back.”

True to his word, it felt as if he’d barely left when he returned, sitting carefully on the side of the bed without touching her, and Prairie heard the familiar sounds of pills rattling in a container. That was enough to make her open her eyes, blinking him into focus to check what it was he was giving her. He was fiddling with the safety cap on a bottle of ibuprofen, and it was such a strange image, so uncharacteristically  _ normal _ that she almost laughed. Prairie bit her tongue, her thoughts drifting now to ease with which he was pulling off the look of a professional, sexy scientist in those clothes. Then she scowled mentally, too tired to bother actually moving her facial muscles.  _ Stop it, Prairie. You must be sicker than you thought. _

“Here,” he said gruffly, and she instinctively raised her hand from the blanket, palm up. He dropped two small pills into her hand, and she lifted them to her lips. Once her hand was empty, Hap passed her a glass of water, her fingers just brushing his in the transfer. 

When Prairie had swallowed the entire contents of the glass, he took it back from her, and she squirmed downward from her semi-upright position until she was laying back quite comfortably in the bed. Her head was still throbbing, but less, now. Hap adjusted the blanket around her shoulders, and then she watched him move to the window and yank the curtains closed, sending the room into blissful, headache-relieving darkness. He came back after a moment, leaning on the edge of the bed.

“Get some sleep,” Hap directed her quietly. “I’ll get you some food when you wake up.”

Bizarrely, it was on the tip of her tongue to ask him to stay. Prairie bit back the words, blaming her fever, and resolutely turned her head away from him, closing her eyes. For a while, there was silence, and then she heard a soft, heavy sigh, and the slight depression in the bed where he’d been resting sprung back up. Footsteps receded, and with a few miserable sniffles, Prairie let herself sink into sleep.

It was the coughing that woke her. It shook her still-weak frame, catapulting her out of sleep and into a sitting position in the bed, her hands fisting up the blanket and her head bending over her bent knees. 

Vaguely, she heard rustling from somewhere to her left, and then something dropped to the floor and Hap sat down on the edge of the bed beside her tucked up feet. “Breathe, Prairie.”

_ I can’t _ , she wanted to snap back as she coughed again, so hard she feared her ribs would crack. Even after she’d expelled every bit of air in her lungs, her muscles continued to spasm, holding tight and stopping her from getting a breath in. And then she would wheeze and gasp in air and make the same awful gagging sounds again. She could feel it vibrating high up in her chest, and now her eyes were pooling reflexive tears. Prairie’s nose sniffled, and a hand extended into her line of vision, brushing a Kleenex against her clenched fist.

“Here.”

She wiped at her eyes briefly, and blew her nose, and then she held the crumpled up tissue over her mouth and coughed wretchedly into it until, finally, it eased and she could breathe again. Exhausted, Prairie sat back against the pillow, turning to look at Hap as much as she dared without giving away her sight. He cleared his throat. 

“There’s a table next to the bed, your left. Tissues at the wall, glass of water three o’clock, bottle of ibuprofen is at twelve, and there are some cough drops…” he hesitated. “In the middle of the clock.”

For the sake of appearances, she reached for the table edge with the backs of her fingers, then found a cough drop and unwrapped it. “Thank you.” It tasted like fake cherry and something medicinal, but her throat burned less, and she was grateful.

“You need to eat,” Hap said briskly, and he stood up in a rush, presumably to go and find her something. She watched him go, noting that he was still wearing well-fitted dark trousers and a crisp white dress shirt, rolled up to the elbows now. Based on the light filtering through the curtains, she’d been asleep for hours, but he hadn’t used any of that time to change. She frowned and lay back on the pillow, thinking. 

She knew she was still running a fever, and when she rested her hands on her thighs, she could see her thin fingers shaking. She wasn’t well yet, and she supposed until she was healthy again, she’d be staying upstairs, in this bed, with only Hap to take care of her. He’d fairly radiated anxiety while he was sitting with her, and it was something she hadn’t come to expect from him. When she cleaned and he was working nearby, there was an energy to him she’d become accustomed to, one that sort of fit with his almost mad-scientist persona. But he was always so calm at the same time, so absorbed in his research. The work was his be all and end all, and even though she frequently picked up on a level of guilt from him, openly displayed anxiousness was new. 

_ He was worried about her _ . And she was still his captive and Prairie didn’t know what to think. Maybe he just didn’t want one of his lab rats to die, and as soon as it crossed her mind, Prairie knew that wasn’t true. He cared. And she did too.

She didn’t know what to think about that inexplicable pull she tried to deny. Regardless of his periodic kindnesses, Hap had kidnapped her, was holding her against her will, was controlling her. She shouldn’t have been fighting instincts to drop a hand on his shoulder when she brought him dinner, to do stupid things like lean against him when she was sitting near enough.

At first it hadn’t been that way. She’d been scared and flighty and always tense. And then, somehow, she’d started getting comfortable. She found herself enjoying his company in spite of herself, and caring about him. Prairie looked forward to the times she’d spend upstairs with him, to the conversations they’d have where he’d almost open up, to the little moments when she’d catch him smiling at her. 

Her thoughts were interrupted with the arrival of a bowl of soup, courtesy of Hap. He carefully propped her up on the pillows, his arm bracing her back for an all too brief moment and then guiding her back on the soft cushion, and then he set a tray in her lap.

It occurred to her that he might have done something with it, in the same way she’d slipped the crushed pills into his stew before the disaster with tomatoes, but she brushed the thought aside. What would be the point in that? She was hungry, and though it seemed bland and looked to her like it was probably just from one of the cans in his pantry, it also smelled good. Prairie took one tentative bite, and then she inhaled the whole bowl. It was mostly broth with a few vegetables and some chicken, and the whole thing was gone in the span of five minutes, in spite of a warning from Hap to go slowly. He was sitting in a chair beside the bed with his arms crossed, one that she didn’t remember being there in the brief moments she’d had in this room before, when she’d first gotten her sight. 

She was able to keep the soup down for almost as long as it had taken her to eat it. As she fought a wave of nausea, she heard a sigh from the man sitting beside her, and, as though he’d been expecting it, a plain bucket landed on her lap just before she retched. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered when she was done, pushing her hair back weakly.

“Don’t be, s-” Hap cleared his throat, biting off one more syllable, and lifted the bucket away from her hastily. “It’s been a while since you ate anything.”

“I can’t eat those pellets,” Prairie defended, her voice a little scratchy. “I was already sick.” She was used to being able to eat little bits of real food, or meals with Hap when he let her. She was good at nibbling a few of the vegetables she was preparing, and if nothing else he usually caved and let her make enough sandwiches for herself and the others. In fact, she’d barely ever eaten the pellets; he would always bring her upstairs and let her eat something else.

“I know,” Hap replied hurriedly. A pause, then, “I didn’t mean to be away that long.”

Prairie was torn between a flash of annoyance and taking it the way she knew it was meant—as an apology. She looked at him, at the eyes behind his glasses, and all she could see in those blue depths was guilt. Prairie fought the urge to reach out toward him, and simply said instead, “It’s okay.” She knew his throwaway comment months earlier about sleep had been a half-truth at best, and she refused to be the cause of more sleeping pills. She could already see bags under his eyes; she wouldn’t make them worse. 

Hap looked away, reaching for something on the table full of cold paraphernalia. 

“Open your mouth.”

“W-what?” Prairie faltered.

“Thermometer,” Hap said impatiently. “Open your mouth.” 

After a moment, she did, and he slid the cold metal tip of a thermometer slide under her tongue. He had the digital readout facing upside down, but she knew it was taking too long to chirp with a final temperature, and that could only mean it was still climbing. It didn’t really surprise her; she still felt remarkably lousy.

Hap sighed heavily when it did finally beep, and then he discarded it back to the table and lifted a bottle of pills again. “These first,” he said, putting a glass of water into her hands. “If they don’t help, you’re going to have to take a cool bath.” 

Prairie’s eyebrows rose in alarm, and she swallowed the pills quickly, gulping down more water to soothe her sore throat. Really, her memories of being sick before, with her mother watching over her, all paled in comparison to this.  _ I feel awful _ . Too late, she realized she’d said it aloud. 

“Try to sleep,” Hap told her softly, leaning forward and adjusting the blanket around her once more. 

After that, Prairie remembered only flashes. Sensations of her surroundings, from the feel of the bed to the periodic sounds of Hap’s voice, faded in and out as she swirled through a world of fever dreams. She was always spinning; sometimes the world spun along too, and sometimes it was only her, and she thought she remembered asking if she could stop. Prairie remembered water, the fear of feeling it close over her nose and mouth, and then something like yelling and a hand in her hair, keeping her head up. She remembered the sensation of falling, hitting carpet and she was still spinning, or maybe it was the ground that kept moving. Either way, she couldn’t stand. 

_ Come on, Prairie, _ she heard, though she couldn’t be sure who was speaking.  _ Sweetheart. _ She remembered dreams in Technicolor of impossible situations and these weren’t her premonitions--she was just burning up. Hallucinating. She remembered rain, too, she thought, falling over her face in rolling drops, and always the smell of coffee. That never went away.  _ God, please, Prairie. Come back. _

She got used to the spinning after a while. It became a constant, and Prairie relaxed, letting everything whirl away. It was dark, and soft, and calm, and she could just let go. She was floating in oblivion, and she swore Hap was there too. It was like a flip book that was going too fast, her mind trying to come up with something peaceful to hold onto. His hands touching her at the oyster bar. The first time she saw him, and those blue, blue eyes. The terror in her heart while she scrambled blindly for his Epipen. His voice, the time she heard him almost laugh, the half-smile she catches at the corner of his lips when he thinks she can’t see him watching her. His hand covering hers, the sight of him standing in the middle of the kitchen looking too perfect. Her name on his lips. 

And then that was his voice again, urgent and desperate and cutting into her memories.  _ You have to fight it, Prairie. Come back to me, Prairie.  _ And, trembling with exhaustion, Prairie started clawing her way back up the cliff. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a 1500 word fluff piece, but Hap and Prairie got away from me. This is not at all edited in ways it should have been so feel free to come hit me with a wet fish or something if you find errors.


	2. Two

Prairie didn’t know where she was, at first, when she woke up. She was so used to seeing the glass cage around her, with plants in the corner and artificial overhead lights, and this room was utterly disorienting. Then, slowly, it came back to her. She’d been sick in the basement, until Hap had carried her up here. She was in his bed now.

Prairie yawned widely, feeling her ears crackle and pop open, much to her relief. She stretched her arms out above her head, and then to the sides, taking in her first real look around the bedroom. Looking beside her, though, paused her mid-yawn and her hands dropped uselessly back to the bed, slightly shocked.

In the chair beside the bed, Hap was sitting, rumpled and chaotic and completely asleep. His head was tilted in a way that made her wince in sympathy for the neck ache he’d have when he woke, and his glasses were discarded on the table next to the Kleenex box. Prairie stared unabashedly. He was still wearing that same shirt and slacks, creased and wrinkled now, and in the late afternoon light filtering through the curtains, she could see that the coloring under his eyes wasn’t shadow--he really did look that exhausted.

He must not have slept at all while she was sick, and after all, how could he have? Prairie knew she must have been coughing near constantly, and loud enough to wake the dead. She carefully ignored the rest of that picture, trying not to focus on the fact that he hadn’t changed, could have used sleeping pills to just knock himself out for a while and hadn’t. It looked for all the world like he hadn’t left her side, and she didn’t know what to make of that. Or, rather, didn’t want to admit what she _wanted_ to make of that. Instead, she tried to mentally inventory what she could remember of her illness.

Her memories beyond him bringing her soup were still hazy and confused, but she could put enough together to fill in some gaps, now that she was actually lucid and logical. He must have gone through with the threat of a cold bath, Prairie figured, and that was where she’d gotten water in her nose. But...what? He’d dropped her? She doubted that. Left her alone and she’d slunk under the water? She doubted that too. Had she been _dressed?_ Prairie pinched the bridge of her nose, wondering whether to doubt that as well, and she noted with relief that the headache had vanished, and her hands were steady. She dropped that hand to her chest a moment later, and glanced down. No, it was still her pale lavender shirt and, presumably, the fabric around her legs beneath the blankets was still her tattered dress, folded down around her hips. They were dry, as was her hair against the pillow.

Prairie turned to look at Hap’s sleeping figure again, and she hesitated. She could wake him, or try to sneak out of the other side of the bed, but Prairie doubted she’d make it far. She’d never been sick enough to have passed out before. She may have been feeling better now, but that didn’t mean she trusted her legs not to collapse yet. That had already happened too many times recently. She could wait, at least until she ate. Besides, even though she knew on some level that she should be looking for a way to escape, she found she didn’t really want to.

And maybe Hap deserved to sleep. He hadn’t let her die; in fact he’d taken just as good of care of her as Nancy used to, at least as far as she could remember. And, admittedly, there was some soft part of her that just purely wanted to let him. Prairie could hear his voice in her head as easily as if they were having the conversation now, in front of her. _I don’t like sleep, it’s a waste of time. But, it’s necessary. So, sleeping pills._ But he wouldn’t have taken them, not if he was watching over her, not so that he could fall asleep in a chair at her bedside. He’d just finally crashed naturally, she surmised. And Prairie knew him well enough to know he would have fought it, knew he would probably wake with the slightest noise from her. And that bothered her, had on some level ever since she’d offered him a water glass months ago.

So, careful not to make any noise, Prairie laid there peacefully for a while, feeling a strip of sun on her face slipping through between the curtains and the wall, enjoying the most relaxing moment she’d had months. A real bed in a real bedroom, sunshine on her face, and the blissfully lazy feeling of nothing to do and nowhere to be… and her sleeping captor looking dead to the world beside her. That too.

Seconds later, her coughing broke the silence. Mercifully, it was calmer, no longer such a horrible wet hacking and no longer quite such a vicious thief of her breath, but it still burst from her throat loud and insistent. As she leaned forward to clear her throat, she saw a flurry of motion beside her, and Hap cleared his own throat.

“How are you feeling?” he ventured after a moment.

She turned toward him, a little smile on her lips. “Better.” She didn’t miss the tiny sigh of relief that escaped him. “I’d like to get up.”

“Of course,” Hap said briskly, and he stood up, pushing the chair back, but, though she waited, he made no move to help her. “I...I don’t know if I can stand,” she ventured uncertainly after a pause. “Without getting dizzy, I mean.”

At that, she watched him hesitate, his eyes flicking over her rapidly, but then he pushed back the blankets at the edge of the bed and very lightly touched her shoulder for a brief moment. _Was it so wrong to wish he’d have kept touching her?_ “I’m right here, in front of the table,” he said slowly. “I’ll catch you if you fall.”

Prairie swung her legs over the side of the bed. What she really wanted was for him to just take her hands and haul her upright, the way Nancy sometimes had when she’d been dizzy and sick, but his assurance that he’d break her fall was better than nothing.

She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, stubbornly trying to pretend that she hadn’t just felt her head spin a little. It was so much better than it had been, though, and she was going to stand up. She’d been sick in a bed long enough. Prairie swiftly pushed herself to her feet.

Immediately the ground under her seemed to tilt. Her hands shot out to the sides to steady herself, and she took a couple of stumbling side steps, her balance still failing her. In spite of her attempt to avoid it, her leg caught the edge of the chair, and she tripped backward, her hands out to brace on something but only grasping at air. She sucked in a quick breath, feeling herself falling even as Hap rushed up toward her.

Strong hands seized her around the waist, righting her quickly and pulling her into him while she regained her balance. Prairie put her hands up instinctively, gripping his already-rumpled shirt, and she took a few more stuttering steps into his chest. There was something shocking about the contact, not just from the adrenaline or the sensation of falling. It was him, his hands bracing firmly on her hips, holding her, muscles shifting beneath her fingertips and the scent she’d come to associate with him enveloping her. He was holding her, looking down with such concern on his face, mixed with something almost angry, and she watched him try to shutter away his emotions. But he was still holding her. The thrilling sensation startled her almost more than her initial fall had, and she was torn between yanking herself away from the contact and leaning in and staying. He was her captor, she reminded herself. He locked her in his basement. Somehow that fact didn’t hold the sway it once did.

Her palms were resting flat on his chest for no reason at all. Now that she had her balance she was steady, unwavering, and he knew that too but he was still holding her waist and he didn’t let go either. They were both standing frozen and Prairie found that she didn’t want to be the one to pull back and break whatever spell they were both caught in.

One of his hands left her waist and reached up, pushing a strand of her pale golden hair behind her ear. Then, his brain seemed to catch up and Hap recoiled from her, letting go so suddenly that Prairie, caught off-guard, stumbled again before she regained her balance.

“I went too fast,” she said ruefully, squaring up her footing on the floor beneath her and resolutely ignoring whatever had just occurred. Before Prairie had any more time to process, Hap had already retreated, and she felt suddenly cold without his warmth.

“I can find the bathroom,” she said quietly after a little pause. “I’ll go slower.”

He let her go.

True to her word, Prairie crossed the bedroom very cautiously, maybe even a little slower than she really needed to move. Finally, though, she stepped over the threshold and closed the bathroom door, leaning back on the wood and letting her head fall against back it. Prairie blew out her breath and let her hands fall over her own hips, and she half expected to still feel Hap’s hands there, the ghost of his touch still lingering. Teeth biting softly into her lip, Prairie sighed again. She felt like she was standing on the edge of something, a high cliff perhaps, with the wind pushing her in all directions and her toes hanging off into open space. One little push, one little misstep, the slightest overbalance and she’d fall.

* * *

 Rooted to the same spot in the bedroom, Hap stared at the closed bathroom door, his hands clenched into tight fists. This was a mistake. All of it was a mistake, and there was no way he could justify any of it. She’d had the flu; not some incurable disease. She’d shivered and coughed and had been generally miserable for a week, but that was what people with the flu did. _And people had the flu all the time_. Of course, her running a temperature nearly six degrees above what was healthy was nothing to laugh at, and undoubtedly cooling her down had been important, but beyond that, there was no way to justify watching over her relentlessly. He hadn’t even been downstairs since he went to get her… the rest of them probably thought he’d gone and killed her somewhere.

No, he’d touched her instead. Carried her. Called her _sweetheart_ , though perhaps there was a god somewhere that had decided to pity him, because she’d been delirious when he let that slip. The feeling of her delicate, feminine waist under his hands, hers landing on his chest, still seemed to burn into him. Hap clenched his fists harder. _She’s not yours. You can’t have her. She doesn't love you, dammit, and why should she?_

She came out of the bathroom a little while later, startling him slightly with the sound of the knob clicking. In the doorway, he watched her hesitate, and she stared hard in his direction like she could see him. _You’re looking at me._ It was unspoken, and he couldn’t deny it.

She looked so beautiful. Her freshly-washed hair was damp and curling around her shoulders, her expression hesitant and curious, and she made the ragged dress look like some kind of high fashion. Hap knew there was a look of undisguised longing on his face. _At least she can’t see it._ He tried, all the same, to lock away his feelings and regain control, but his mind seemed hell-bent on pretending.

Pretending this was their bedroom, and she’d just woken up and now they could go and have a late breakfast. Pretending everything was normal, pretending she was _his._ His not because he’d taken her and made her his captive, but his because she wanted to be. _She would never want to be_.

Hap realized that his breathing sounded ragged to his own ear, and he saw Prairie tilt her head, listening, her lips slightly parted. And then she coughed once, making an adorable little face, and walked toward him. It took him too long to register that he was standing in front of the table with a water bottle on it, and he jumped aside hastily as she moved past him, reaching out for it.

Hap’s hand landed gently on hers and she started slightly, relaxing as she felt him guide her hand over, passing over a tissue that tickled her palm, and then she felt the small round cap of the bottle pressing into her fingers. Not for the first time, Prairie felt a little bit guilty about letting him think she was blind. She uncapped the water and drank, calming her angry throat, and then set the bottle down.

And then she turned, the table against the backs of her thighs, and that put him directly in front of her. She could have ducked to the side and moved away if she wanted, and she trusted him to let her. Prairie didn’t move though, caught up in a torrent of emotions she wasn’t at all prepared for. She trembled, her heart skipping beats, and then, following instincts more than any rational thought, Prairie reached up and flattened her palm over his heart. She could feel the rhythm that matched the sound she knew from all those months ago at the oyster bar, racing to keep time with hers.

She felt, rather than heard him suck in a breath. Then, feather-light and hesitant, his hands returned to their earlier placement on her hips. It scared her a little, to admit that it felt like they belonged there. Her own desire was terrifying. Prairie leaned forward, into him, and she felt the cliff’s edge fall away from her feet. She plunged into freefall, and when she felt one of Hap’s hands come up to tangle in her soft hair, Prairie thought maybe he could catch her.

She tilted her head up to him, her head falling back against the hand in her hair, the same way she thought she remembered him holding her above the cool bathwater.

He said her name once, husky and low and desperate, and it sent a shiver rippling through her. Her fingertips tightened on his shirt, and in spite of her worn dress, under the intensity of his gaze she felt completely naked. Hap’s hand shifted on her waist, pulling her closer, his thumb grazing her lower belly over her dress, and she shivered, a jolt of arousal running through her. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, desire was becoming more and more of a default with him lately, every time she was upstairs doing something around him. Maybe this was wrong, but she was tired of fighting it.

Prairie leaned up on her tiptoes, swallowing her apprehension. “Kiss me,” she whispered boldly, and then in a split second, his lips crashed into hers, and the world was reduced to just the two of them.

His touch incinerated her. Oh, she’d kissed boys before, long ago. Nice boys like her old boyfriend Byron, and they paled in comparison to this. Prairie was burning up, set aflame by the onslaught of his lips and she couldn’t get enough.

Prairie brought both of her hands up to link behind his neck, leaning into him, closing her eyes and gasping into the kiss. At that parting of her lips, his tongue brushed over them, asking her permission, and Prairie was entirely powerless to resist, her tongue sweeping over his in return. He tasted like coffee and faintly of cigarettes and something uniquely _him_ , and it scared her how much she wanted more. The kiss was needy and desperate, spoke of suppressed desire and longing and fear and forgiveness, and it took her breath away. _He_ took her breath away.

She wouldn’t admit to consciously thinking about it before, but still, Hap’s kiss didn’t surprise her. It was gentle and demanding all at once, the same sort of paradox she thought he was all the time, and she could already tell it would be horribly addictive.

Finally, regretfully, Prairie broke the kiss to breathe, but he took that as an opportunity to attack her neck with his lips instead. _Oh. Oh, god._ A soft moan escaped her throat, her cheeks flushing at the sound.

His hand slid from her waist to splay out over her lower back, pulling her impossibly closer, and Prairie arched into him, her hands sliding out of his hair to grip fistfuls of the back of his shirt instead, her body overwhelmed with the sensations. She tipped her head to the side, giving him a better angle as he continued to devour her, his mouth hot and relentless on her flushed skin. Prairie felt dizzy all over again, but this was another kind, and she hung onto him and let him burn her up, craving more of his touch.

And then her brain caught up to the rest of her, overcoming her wildly beating heart and the desire running through her, and, hating herself for it already, Prairie brought her hands back to his chest and pushed. “No,” she gasped out.

He let her go like she’d burned him, stumbling back and away from her, and he had such an expression of guilt, of confusion, of betrayal, that she thought her heart might break. She could see in the look in his eyes, the set of his mouth, that she’d hurt him and he was trying not to show it, and Prairie bit her lip. She already missed him, missed his touch, and that realization sent a cold knot of fear clenching in her belly again. It did nothing to diminish the flame of her arousal.

She walked forward, back to him, and carefully reached up to cover his lips with her fingertips. Her hands were cool against the heat of his mouth. “You’ll get sick,” she whispered, needing him to understand. It wasn’t because she didn’t want him. Lord help her, she wanted him too much, and there was no way that didn’t show on her blushing face. He had to know.

Hap took her hand in his, pulling it away from his lips with a brief kiss to her fingertips, and her belly flipped when he looked at her again. “Oh,” he said, in that same voice that did things to her, left her aching for more. “Is that all?”

A noise of exasperation escaped her. “Yes! I can’t lift you into a cold bath, Hap. And if...something happens,” she said lamely, “I don’t know the code to the doors.”

That harsh reminder of her captivity sobered them both, and Prairie’s hand fell back to her side limply. “Are you going to take me back downstairs now?”

He blinked, looking momentarily confused, and then started. “No. No, no, Prairie. You...you’re still sick.” _If I can’t kiss you, at least I can keep you here,_ it seemed to suggest. _If we’re using that excuse now_.

It wasn’t an excuse, but at the same time it was. Prairie wouldn’t wish her illness on anyone; it had been miserable. But really, the only way she would have gotten sick in her lonely, immunocompromised world is if he’d brought it back with him from a trip, given it to her, but had been strong enough to fight it off himself. And she didn’t even think she was still contagious… children were supposed to be sent back to school after the fever broke, and hers had. On one hand, Hap getting sick and even dying like she thought she very nearly had wasn’t something she was willing to risk.

On the other, Prairie was still in freefall, and she was terrified of what would happen when she landed. He could kiss her like no one ever had and look at her like he thought she really was an angel, his angel, but that didn’t mean anything. She craved his touch, her body wanted him, and sometimes, late at night when she was thinking about him and trying not to, her mind whispered a traitorous little word that started with _L._ But if she gave in, then what?

Prairie had no guarantees, though she knew he did like her. And she liked to think she did have some morals, though if all of his kisses were like that she didn’t know how long they’d last. She cleared her throat, her hands going nervously to her hair and smoothing it for something to do.

“Hap?” she ventured after a moment.

“Hm?” He looked almost grateful for a new focus.

“Can I make something for the others?” _There._ She needed a reason not to run right back to his arms--and his lips--she could make herself busy instead. At least until she’d processed this.

“Of course. Make whatever you like.” Hap still sounded slightly breathless, a little stunned, a feeling she understood too well. He walked toward the doorway, heading for the kitchen, and Prairie followed him, resolutely staring at the back of his head and _not_ the way his ass looked in those stupid fitted slacks because that would be completely counterproductive. As grateful as she was for her renewed sight, sometimes being blind had been so much easier, at least in regards to Hap. She’d imagined him handsome from the first moment she’d heard his voice, but there was something to be said for not being able to get distracted staring with her mouth open.

Hap sat down at the corner table in the kitchen, pulling out notes of some kind on NDE’s, and Prairie walked determinedly past, pausing in front of the fridge to think. Her first instinct was sandwiches again--they were simple enough to make and transport and she knew what everyone liked on them now. But she wanted to keep her hands busy for longer than it would take to make three sandwiches. And given her long absence, they might have thought she was dead--maybe she could surprise them with something nicer in addition to herself, alive.

Tomatoes were out, obviously--she kind of hated the horrible little fruits now--and she didn’t want to shock them with anything too rich, but maybe something more like a real dinner.

“Hap, do you have potatoes?” Prairie asked briskly a moment later. Maybe if she made herself say his name enough it would lose the intimate association. Prairie opened the fridge, putting her hand in and feeling around for show.

There was still fresh chicken left over from one of the other things she’d cooked; it might be a little haphazard in its presentation but she doubted they were going to mind.

“Potatoes?” he echoed after a delayed moment. “Yes, in the pantry.”

Prairie nodded, tossing the chicken into a pan with olive oil and setting it on the stove. When she turned briefly past the window, she caught sight of her own face, reflected back at her against the darkness outside, and froze. She looked… ravished. There was no other word for it. Her hair was a disaster in spite of the time she’d taken to try to neaten it in the bathroom earlier, she was blushing and she could see in her own eyes a frustrated excitement looking back at her. Not to mention her kiss-swollen lips and what looked to be the mercifully faint beginnings of a bruise on her neck.

Prairie sighed, twisting the knob on the gas stove. She was going to go downstairs and feed the others, she couldn’t back out of that now. And she would field inevitable comments from the observant trio as best she could. But if Scott was going to greet her with lewd comments as he had once before, she didn’t know what she’d say. _No, he didn’t fuck me but I wanted him to_ was not something that was ever going to go over well. Stifling a groan, she went to the pantry and pulled out a bag of potatoes.

Hap, meanwhile, had been reading the same damn sentence over and over again, and he wasn’t any closer to comprehending it than he was five minutes ago. He let the sheets of paper fall onto the table at random, giving up, and propped his head up on one hand, turning to watch Prairie moving about the kitchen. She couldn’t see him staring; she wouldn’t have to know that she was currently occupying _all_ of his thought processes and the only thing he had any hope of concentrating on was her.

She was calm and self assured in his kitchen, making herself at home like always, and there was something beautiful in the ease with which she navigated the space. Looking at her now, he would never have guessed that she was blind, save for the handful of little things--she found surfaces with the backs of her fingers first and felt around for utensils, and she never, ever looked directly at what she was doing.

Frowning slightly, Hap tried to refocus his thoughts. _What are you doing to me?_ He shook his head impatiently. She was beautiful, he could admit that, and she was the kind of person that made her kidnapper a sandwich instead of trying her best to threaten him with the available knife. She brought light wherever she went, even into his dark soul. And when he did actually have conversations with her, she was smart and funny and endearing and he found himself enjoying them. And he had wanted few things in his life more than he wanted to toss her up on the counter next to her potatoes and have her then and there, but instead Hap set his jaw and forced himself to pick up his research again.

She was an NDE survivor. She was a subject. She was his prisoner, even. Prairie was not his, she wasn’t meant to be touched by someone like him, and damn it all, he was not allowed to fall in love with her. No matter what he thought he felt. Leon could do it. Leon didn’t get attached, and he’d spent a great deal of his time trying to be like the man who’d been a mentor to him. This would not be a problem for Leon, _so why was it one for him?_ Hap reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, realizing as he did so that his glasses were still upstairs on the table next to the bed.

He was bone-achingly tired, a headache was forming behind his eyes, and there was a peculiar sort of pain over his heart that had to be Prairie’s fault. Resisting the urge to slam his hand down on the table, Hap stood, seeing Prairie turn slightly when she heard the motion.

“Left my glasses in the bedroom,” he muttered in explanation, and walked out of the room in search of them before he could do anything stupid.

* * *

A breath of relief escaped Prairie when Hap walked out of the room. It wasn’t that she minded his presence, but he’d been watching her with such intensity that she knew if she met his eyes, she’d see the same lust and longing in them from earlier. She didn’t know how she could have stood that.

She knew he thought she couldn’t see him, but she could. And with every adoring glance, he was only making this harder for her. Prairie finished setting sliced chicken and crisp herb and garlic roasted potatoes on three plates, leaving enough food warm on the stove for herself and Hap when she was done.

Waiting for him to return and help her carry it, Prairie tried not to think about how automatic it was for her to go and feed the captives, and then come back up and eat with their kidnapper. _You’re in over your head, Prairie,_ she thought, and then, tears she wouldn’t let fall stinging her eyes, _I want to talk to Mom._ Nancy would know what to do. She’d certainly have plenty to say about the whole mess first, and Prairie could hardly blame her, but she’d have all sorts of reasonable solutions and comfort to offer afterward.

“Finished?”

With his glasses on this time, Hap walked over and took one of the plates off of the counter. “Got the other two?”

Prairie nodded mutely, lifting the plates with her thumbs pinning down the fork handles, and she followed behind him, waiting while he punched in the code to the door and then descending after him into the basement.

“Oh, my god, _Prairie!_ ” It was Rachel who saw her first.

Homer jerked around in a rush from where he’d been facing away from them, and even Scott’s head popped up off the cot in a hurry. “Prairie?” Homer echoed, reverently, disbelievingly, and Prairie felt a pang.

In the confines of the basement cages, having an idealistic, mutual crush with Homer was all well and good. But under the sunlight upstairs, in Hap’s magnetic orbit, it melted away like dew on grass, leaving her with the undeniable fact that it wasn’t Homer she wanted. Standing here now, though, bearing hot food and having been just kissed senseless while they probably thought she was dead, guilt welled up inside her.

She lifted both of the plates in her hands as she came to stand beside Hap. “I made dinner.”

She went through the same motions as always, letting Hap open the doors for her to hand through a plate of food, and she smiled briefly when Rachel squeezed her hand tightly in the handoff. Scott yanked the plate away from her with a muffled “thanks”, and then she came around to Homer’s.

Hap was holding the last plate, and he handed it to her after unlocking the door. Her hands brushed his fingers briefly, and she turned to face Homer like that touch hadn’t reignited every flame of his earlier kiss. She bit down on her bottom lip, though, handing the food off to Homer without looking him in the eyes, and she curled her fingers back carefully when he took it, avoiding any contact, even accidental.

“Prairie…” he started, and she turned away, back toward Hap. _He could tell._ “Prairie, what…” Homer trailed off again.

“What’d you have to do for this?” Scott called out suddenly, mouth full of chicken. “Did he make you fuck him?”

Prairie closed her eyes, gritting her teeth. She hadn’t been _serious_ when she’d thought about him saying something like that.

“No,” she said, calmly, and surprised even herself when her voice came out evenly. _No, because he didn’t_ make _me do anything._

“Enjoy your meal,” Hap said harshly from behind her, and she knew he was angry. “You won’t be getting another like it.”

Prairie checked quickly; they were all looking down at their plates. Ever so briefly, she reached her hand out behind her toward his, a silent message of _stay calm, it’s okay_ that she thought she was allowed to send now.

He didn’t take her hand, but she heard him take in a quiet breath. Fighting through the tension, Prairie went on, “If you all tell me how you like your potatoes, I can make something else next time.”

“Yeah, well, we won’t be having any more, will we?” Scott shot back.

Regardless of the messy specifics of their relationship right now, Prairie knew one thing. If she wanted to make dinner for them again, all she had to do was ask. She fought the bizarre urge to smile, and shrugged noncommittally. And then, to her surprise, Rachel made a sound halfway between a laugh and a snort, and for a moment, Prairie almost thought she _understood_.

Homer, certainly, did not. His mouth fell open, revealing half-chewed chicken and a completely shocked face. “Prairie, what the hell?”

She swallowed hard. There wasn’t a way she could make them understand, and she felt the chasm opening between them, hurting even though she knew it was coming. She didn’t want to choose, but here she was, standing on one side of a gap that was rapidly becoming too wide to jump across, and the people that had kept her sane for months were on the other side. Because she was standing here. With Hap. And _she_ hadn’t even thought through that one yet, and she could never explain that to them.

Not even to Rachel, even if she had picked up on the idea that maybe Hap was a little bit wrapped around Prairie’s finger. She still had the same confused, betrayed expression as all of them. Homer didn’t get it, and he was angrily stabbing at his potatoes. Prairie thought he was probably picturing them as Hap’s face, and she couldn’t blame him. Were their roles reversed, she might have done the same thing.

Scott didn’t really seem to care all that much, but she could always count on him to make the situation worse anyway. She coughed a few times, still not having shaken off that symptom fully, and hesitated.

She could walk back into her cage if she wanted. Hap would let her, he’d lock her in and leave her no matter what he thought about it. It would be her choice, her hail-mary jump across that gap, and she could fix this. He would see it as betrayal, he’d be hurt, he’d lock her in like that was the punishment, and she’d probably never see upstairs again. Not, at least, for a long time.

Or she could turn around and walk back up the stairs with Hap. She could leave them. How could she live with herself if she left them in glass cages to go upstairs and eat with Hap, and go to sleep on a soft bed? She still didn’t like eating if they couldn’t.

Prairie swallowed hard, frozen. _You can find a way to get them out,_ she reasoned, and that could be her excuse. She could try to figure out the door code under the guise of her blindness, she could use his attraction to her against him. Assuming, of course, that that was something she could actually bring herself to do. And that he would leave her with enough brain power to do _anything_ remotely intelligent.

With her feet leaden, Prairie turned and walked toward the stairs, Hap following. She was doing this for them. And then, briefly, unconsciously, she reached up and touched her lips. It was true that she stood the best chance of breaking them out from upstairs. But if she was more honest than she wanted to be, she was doing this for herself just as much.


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A third chapter! It's a miracle!

She and Hap spent the next two weeks dancing around one another, and it was killing Prairie. To her great surprise, Hap had given her _carte blanche_ with meals as of last week, and when she went downstairs, pellets no longer rattled into their cages. So, Prairie brought three meals a day downstairs without saying anything to them, and not once did she attempt to look at the code Hap was typing in. If anything, the knowledge that he was treating them better only made her less inclined to try to go behind his back. What he was doing was wrong and she knew he knew that, but if he was going to start taking steps in the right direction, maybe she wouldn’t have to betray his trust.

She knew he did trust her implicitly, if only because of the freedoms he was giving her almost without thinking about it now. She still slept in his bed, in spite of a horrifically awkward conversation in which she tried to give it back to him, and Hap slept somewhere else, if he slept at all. Prairie figured he had to have a camera somewhere, though, or some security measure to stop her from just walking out and breaking another window. Or, maybe not.

Prairie had been trying not to overthink his new rules, or lack thereof. She couldn’t deny, though, that sometimes she almost forgot that he wasn’t just an awkward, brilliant, unfortunately attractive scientist she was renting a room from. Except for the knowledge in the back of her mind that she couldn’t leave if she wanted. Except for the cages in the basement. Except for having to pretend she was blind.

She went through the same chores as always, cooking and cleaning and keeping things organized like the excellent housekeeper she usually was, but it was different now. She knew Hap wasn’t stupid, he knew that she was bold enough to bust out a window with a frying pan when she really had been blind. He still left all sorts of things she could turn into weapons around. He still left her to her own devices. He still ordered her a set of Braille books. And Prairie had to wonder if he was watching her after all. She didn’t ask. She just did her best to go about her business naturally, but she thought she’d never been so hyperaware of Hap before in her life.

The reality of his kiss had put every half-formed, hastily squashed fantasy to shame, and now that she knew what she could have, maintaining a reasonable distance was agonizing. The way she kept catching him with that heated, worshiping gaze that he thought she couldn’t see didn’t help matters.

She had never paid attention to the bright, innocent, dorky way he talked sometimes. He would open up to her with something random, a TV show or something he’d heard on the radio, a set of Braille books he’d bought her on a whim. It was unendingly frustrating, these glimpses of a man he could be except for the people in his basement, and mostly it was just frustratingly cute. She’d never thought glasses could look that sexy on a person before. _Stop it, Prairie._

And she’d never known it was possible to be completely entranced by the simple action of someone eating stew. She’d made one again, a different recipe with no tomatoes and no pills, either, and she realized halfway through the meal that she’d stopped eating and was instead staring, hypnotized, at him spooning stew into his mouth. Mercifully, he’d thought her oddly-placed blind stare was just a coincidence while she was spacing out, and she didn’t have to reveal her sight because she’d been watching his lips. Lips that she desperately wanted to kiss her again. _Prairie!_

Now, she couldn’t get Hap off her mind, and Prairie was at the point of spontaneously combusting. Really, she’d spent enough time lying awake thinking about it that she had half a mind to go and steal some of his sleeping pills out of the cabinet. That wasn’t a true solution, though. Prairie threw the blankets off of her legs and slipped out of bed, feeling the carpet beneath her bare toes. Hap had that handful of new Braille books lying around somewhere, and she didn’t need to see to read them. It was obvious she wouldn’t be getting any more sleep; she could take one of them back to bed and read in the dark until morning.

She shuffled slowly down the hallway, stifling a yawn behind her hand, and turned the corner, pausing mid-step when she saw the light still shining through the doorway. Evidently Hap wasn’t sleeping either, though that wasn’t unusual for him. She could hear the faint sounds of something playing on the radio--probably NPR--and smiled to herself. _Oh, Hap._ After a moment’s hesitation, Prairie kept walking. Light wouldn’t deter a blind woman, and he’d probably already heard her footsteps.

She walked into the room with her head held high, trying to act like her heart wasn’t already racing at the sight of him, bent over some gadget at his desk amid piles of papers and books stacked everywhere. Organized chaos, although Prairie wondered if he really did have an organization system for most of it.

“Prairie?” He looked up, turning to her with those blue eyes that took her breath away every time.

She feigned surprise, taking a few more steps toward his desk. “Oh, I--I didn’t know you were still awake. I was just looking for a book.” _Maybe this wasn’t a good idea._

Hap lit up with such brightness that her heart hurt. He stood quickly, reaching for a stack of books on the corner of his desk and holding them out toward her. “Here,” he said quietly, just barely touching her stomach with the spines so that she could find them. “You’ve probably read them; I just picked a few different ones you might like.” He looked so delighted, offering them to her nervously, and she knew it meant something to him that she wanted them. He was downright adorable, excited and anxious and really just sexy in those glasses, and how could she not fall in love with him? _Love_. Her heart skipped a beat.

Prairie took the books from him, and there she stayed, motionless, with her arms full of Braille texts and her braid undone and her feet bare. Hap was looking at her like she was everything again, intently and unrestrained. She could see his hands balled into fists at his sides, and she knew there were words lingering on the tip of his tongue. _Love_ . _He loved her too._

What he finally settled on was simply, “Prairie.” Just her name, just once, and almost reverently, with desperation running through it.

That was enough. This wasn’t just falling anymore, this was throwing herself headlong into a freefall she could admit she wanted now. _Catch me_. All of those brand-new, unopened Braille books hit the floor with a muffled thud, and Prairie reached up to him, pressing her lips to his.

She took him by surprise at first, both with her actions and with the intensity behind it, but Hap caught up quickly, reaching for her in return and eagerly reciprocating her kiss. He held onto her like he was drowning and she was the only air he’d ever want to breathe, kissed her like his very life depended on it. Prairie closed her eyes, heat pooling between her thighs, and parted her lips with a little sigh, letting him slide his tongue against hers.

Hap slid his hands down over her hips, gliding over the curve of her ass with an appreciative little squeeze that had her gasping into his mouth. While Prairie arched into him, he bundled up her dress in his hands, inching it upwards until the fabric was crumpled around her thighs. Then he turned with her in his arms, and she let him lead her backwards, his mouth still on hers in a messy, chaotic kiss.

When she could feel the edge of his desk against her back, Hap dropped one hand from her waist and reached around her. Prairie barely had time to register the crashing sound of books hitting the floor before he effortlessly lifted her the handful of inches to sit her up on the desk. She squeaked at the sudden motion, her hands going to his shoulders for balance, and was rewarded with a breath like a laugh against her lips. Prairie smiled in return, and she tugged him closer until he stood between her thighs. She could feel her heart racing in her chest, and when he leaned down and kissed her once more she thought she’d never felt so alive, not even when she’d opened the window in his plane all those months ago. Whatever doubts she may have had in the back of her mind were gone now, because this was coming home and he was safe and loving as much as he was burning her up, and Prairie didn’t know how this could possibly be wrong.

Hap slid his hands beneath her bunched-up skirt, smoothing briefly over the strip of skin beneath her shirt hem and then moving upward, lifting the dress with him as he went. Prairie automatically raised her arms and helped him wiggle her out of it, biting down on her lip when he grazed her breasts in passing. He tossed it down onto the ground beside him carelessly before returning his attention to what remained of her clothes, playing with the hem of her shirt and brushing over her hipbones. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, and the way his face flickered with hesitation afterward had her wondering if he’d even meant to say the words aloud.

Prairie pulled the worn shirt over her head before he could do anything about it, throwing it vaguely in the direction of her dress, and then she turned to his clothes.

With a little smile playing on her reddened lips, Prairie yanked the ends of his shirt free, the creased fabric falling over his belt, and made short work of the buttons. He just watched her undress him, hands wandering distractingly over her skin all the while. Hap let her go just long enough to let her push the shirt from his shoulders, and as soon as it fell he pulled her flush against him. He really was gorgeous, putting her expectations all to shame, and she wanted to touch him, now that she could actually see the muscles he’d been hiding beneath that utility vest. Instead, Prairie found herself entirely distracted by the press of his hardness between her legs and his caress of her breasts through the thin fabric of her bra. In every possible way, it seemed, this man would be the death of her.

Somewhere in the middle of high school, she’d gotten her hands on some trashy romance novel, the contents of said novel enough to have her fingertips cringing away from the Braille letters in embarrassment. It had only taken her a few more like them to desensitize herself to that sort of thing. A few years later she’d had incredibly forgettable sex with one of her perfectly boring, respectful boyfriends and Prairie just didn’t _get_ it--what was everyone so excited about?

Oh, god help her, she understood now. Hap had deftly unclasped her bra with one hand, lowering his mouth to her breast as the fabric fell away. Prairie’s hand shot out behind her to brace herself on the desk, heedless of the sound and touch that told her she really was sitting in the middle of his research, while her other went automatically to tangle in his hair.

The sensation of his tongue swirling around her hardened nipple had her gasping out unintelligible curses, and Hap lifted his head, looking at her with equal parts adoration, amusement, and lust. She was drunk on him, the feel of his hands on her body and the taste of his lips, the smell of coffee and soap and whatever else that was simply _Hap,_ the look in his eyes when he looked at her. For a moment, staring at him, she almost forgot she was supposed to be blind. Prairie refocused her gaze away from his face, but that only brought her attention to the bulge in his trousers, and she swallowed, her core aching. Her plain underwear were already soaked; if he kept this up she’d do the same to his desk.

Hap seemed to have reached a similar sort of conclusion, though Prairie doubted he’d shared the specifics of her thoughts. At any rate, his office was too much of a disaster zone to lay her down and love her like she deserved, and he lifted her into his arms once more. Prairie locked her ankles at his back and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, stunned again at the ease with which he carried her.

She may have been weightless for all of the effort it seemed to take him, relocating them both to the bedroom and kicking the door shut before tossing her down onto the bed.  She was caught up in the flying backward, in the sudden soft landing with her hair all over her face, and in the way her heart was still racing and she was on fire. She was mesmerized by his eyes, his body, entranced by the simple motion of his hand reaching for his belt, and Prairie couldn’t pinpoint the moment when he’d actually gotten on the bed and draped himself over her, his weight pressing her gently into the mattress. All she really knew was that he was there now, settled comfortably between her legs, and she really didn’t want him anywhere else.

“Prairie,” he whispered again, and she could tell he was hesitating. She could see the longing and lust written on his face, could feel his desire in every kiss and in the insistent press of his cock to her belly, and he was still waiting on her. Still, apparently, not quite convinced that she wanted this or that he deserved it.

Prairie slid her hands down to his hips, hooking her fingers into the waist of his boxers, and tugged insistently. “Yes,” she said simply, a response to her name and an answer to the unspoken questions all at the same time. _Make love to me, Hap_ , she almost felt like saying, but that particular wording might be just asking for trouble.

Instead, they communicated without words at all, in a language of kisses and caresses and little breathy moans, mostly from Prairie. The stifled curses were also her contribution as Hap kissed his way down her stomach, pausing with each exclamation to huff a quiet laugh at her. Under normal circumstances, Prairie wasn’t particularly given to swearing, but if there was supposed to be a better response to the man she loved burying his head between her thighs than _oh, fucking--Hap_ , she wasn’t aware of it.

In fact, with Hap’s tongue currently making her feel things she didn’t know were possible, Prairie’s awareness of everything else was entirely absent, her focus solely on the way his tongue was licking its way tantalizingly over her entrance, then flicking over her clit. She buried her hands instinctively in his hair, her hips raising off the mattress of their own volition. One of Hap’s hands moved to pin her gently back down, while with the other he slipped a finger into her. Coupled with his mouth on her core, he was quickly driving her to a peak higher than she’d ever been, and she was breathless and writhing beneath him, vaguely aware that the nonsense and moaning were coming from _her_ mouth.

“Hap, oh, god, _fuck_ \--” She felt him smirk against her pussy, sliding a second finger into her to join the first. He slid his fingers in and out, slowly and deliberately, Prairie squirming desperately under his touch. “Hap, _please,_ ” she begged inarticulately, too far gone to care about how pathetically needy that might have sounded in any other situation.

Then Hap curled his fingers inside her, hitting something she hadn’t known existed, and combined it all with a particularly artul swirl of his stupidly talented tongue. Prairie came screaming his name in spite of her best attempts, and she wondered vaguely if the others thought he was torturing her. He certainly wasn’t, she thought fuzzily as waves of pleasure crashed over her. Her fingertips dug desperately into the sheets at her sides, and her body arched into his hands, her head thrown back on the pillows. And for Hap, there’d never been a more enchanting sight.

Prairie came back to earth slowly, blinking and breathing hard and feeling completely dazed. Hap was looking down at her, unadulterated adoration in his eyes, and her heart swelled. He loved her.

Suddenly, a little laugh escaped Prairie’s lips, lighting up her flushed face.

“What?” Hap prompted her, a crease forming between his brows.

Prairie smirked, stretching her arms out above her head, noting the way his eyes tracked like magnets to her breasts. “Does that count as a near-death experience?”

Hap raised one eyebrow, a short laugh escaping him as well. “Only for you,” he told her softly, earning what was perhaps the most girlish smile Prairie had ever worn in response. _What was he doing to her?_ She reached out toward him, finding his broad shoulders under her hands and tugging gently, pulling him back down on top of her. “Please, Hap,” Prairie wasn’t even sure what she was asking. She ran her hands across the muscles of his back, down his sides… he was an addiction she wasn’t prepared for, and she couldn’t seem to stop touching him.

“Please, what, sweetheart?” Hap prompted her in a low voice, planting lazy, heated kisses on her shoulder. “What do you want?”

“You,” Prairie responded hungrily, past the point of blushing and mincing words. “I need you inside me.” _Now_ , her mind added impatiently.

He shifted above her, and she heard the crinkling sound of a condom wrapper. Then Hap was back, looking down at her with an adoring expression that made her heart ache, and, slowly, she felt him ease inside her. Rather than worry about her supposedly blind gaze getting too focused, it was easier to simply close her eyes and revel in the sensation as he sheathed himself fully. At first he stayed completely still, a single exhale telling her how much this was affecting him, and for a moment Prairie let him just be.

Impatience won very quickly, though, and she shifted her hips against him, finding as she did so that he could, in fact, fit infinitesimally deeper within her. “Hap…” she started breathlessly, her fingers gripping his back.

Prairie rocked her hips again, feeling him pulse inside her and reveling in his stifled groan when she clamped her walls around him. Hap caught her lips in a desperate kiss as he began to move, quickly finding a unison rhythm to his thrusts with her. And Prairie just let herself feel it, this indescribable combination of heady physical pleasure and the sensation in her chest that brought a blush to her cheeks and made her heart race.

Instead of an intense orgasm, it hit her like a wave this time. She felt it was pulling her under, washing over her, wave after wave of disorientating ecstasy that she felt resonating through her entire body. Her vision blurred for a second, and she took Hap with her off the edge of that cliff she kept coming back to in her mind, vaguely registering the low sound he made in the back of his throat when he came.

She didn’t expect to immediately miss the loss of him when he rolled to the side of her, dragging out one more lazy kiss on her lips first. He was still just beside her, one of her hands resting on his chest and his arms holding her close, but Prairie decided she would rather the warm weight of him over her back again. For a while they both lay there, lost in each other, still coming down off the high and unwilling to move. Prairie tucked her head on his shoulder, smiling softly, and Hap smoothed a hand over her hair in response. The thought of reality, of her captive situation and her friends in the basement, never even crossed her mind; Prairie Johnson, angel or no, had just discovered her heaven and here was where she would stay.

* * *

 She woke up some indeterminate amount of time later, a little fuzzy headed and unreasonably happy. Hap had gotten up at some point to clean up and rearranged them when he returned, so she’d ended up on the other side of him now, but she was sprawled basically on top of him in any case. Blinking through her lashes cautiously, she noted that his eyes were open, and he was watching her sleep with such an expression of peaceful adoration on his face that her breath caught. _What did she do to deserve him?_

Prairie knew the answer to that. She’d had an NDE. That was how this whole thing started, if she was being honest. She drowned in a lake in Russia, and now she was naked in bed with a man who she had never expected to care about this much. And she did care. That was why she’d really gone upstairs with him, she could admit that to herself. But she’d promised herself she’d try to get the others out. And as much as she wanted to stay in this little happy bubble with Hap’s arms around her, playing with her hair, she couldn’t avoid it forever.

“You’re doing a lot of thinking,” Hap murmured in a voice that suggested he was preparing to hear her tell him she regretted this whole thing. _Silly man,_ she thought fondly, but she had to take this opportunity all the same. She could reassure him later.

Prairie propped herself up on one elbow in the bed, her hand sliding through her tangled hair, and blurted out the question before she could change her mind. “What would it take for you to let us go?”

Hap’s brow furrowed, looking like his brain wasn’t quite functioning yet. Mostly he just looked irked that she’d moved from his arms to sit up, and that was irritatingly cute. “What?”

“What would it take?” she repeated. He’d heard her.

“Prairie…” he started, pleading, guilt written all over his face.

Suddenly feeling inspired, Prairie sat up fully. “What have you learned from them? What answers have they given you? And what can they give you that I can’t?”

The sheet had slipped from her naked body entirely, and she watched his eyes flick briefly to her breasts before dragging back up to look at her face. “You have data but you don’t know anything,” she challenged, even though she knew that wasn’t really true. “I asked you, in the beginning. I asked you to study me, I gave you my permission, I wanted to. The others you lied to, but me?” Prairie shook her head. “I wanted to go, you didn’t need to make me a sales pitch. I was always willing, Hap,” she said fiercely. “So let them go and study _me_.”

Prairie slid one leg over both of his, shifting over until she was straddling him, her hands resting up on his chest, and for a moment, she stared hard at the wall, trying to ignore his cock twitching against her thigh. Regrettably, there were things she needed to take care of before she could have her way with him. “You study us, you watch us die, but you don’t know what you’re hearing because we aren’t telling you.”

Prairie watched him turn away from her, and she took a deep breath. _Now or never._ “Look at me.”

With a started look, Hap whipped his head back to meet her eyes. Her clear blue eyes, locked on his. “I went to a woman named Khatun. She told me I was the Original Angel, and she’s the one who took my sight when I had my first NDE, and yes, Hap, she gave it back. I can see, and when I die I go to this...this starry space, and she’s there to give me a choice to go back or go on. But last time?” Prairie laughed a little, reaching up to push some of her blonde hair out of her face. “When I was sick, I think I almost died. Right?”

He nodded imperceptibly, pain flashing in his eyes at the reminder that he’d almost lost her outside of an experiment.

“I went to you, Hap, I saw you. You were the one I focused on when I was dying, you were the one that brought me back.” Prairie rocked her hips once, fighting to keep her head clear through her own surge of arousal. “That’s the whole truth, Hap, that’s all of it. And I’ll tell you every detail you want to know.” His hands moved to her thighs, the slight roughness of his fingers gliding over her smooth skin, and she shivered, involuntarily rolling her hips again. “Study me. Just promise me you’ll let them go.”

Prairie couldn’t read the emotions on his face, and for a moment she was afraid she might have just short-circuited his brilliant brain entirely. Then, in between the guilt and shock and desire, Hap blinked at her a few times, his fingers tightening their grip on her. “You can see.”

A little laugh escaped Prairie, and she shook her head. “ _That’s_ what you got out of that?”

“You lied to me.”

Her shoulders slumped a little. “I had just pushed you down the stairs when I got my sight back, Hap, I didn’t want to tell you then. And then I didn’t know how to tell you after that.”

Still lying against the scattered pillows below her, Hap reached up to her face, smoothing his thumb over her cheek, and she leaned automatically into his gentle touch. “Yes,” he said suddenly, and her brow furrowed.

“They can go, Prairie, of course they can go. And you can too,” he added, barely above a whisper. “And if they turn me in, let them. It’s what I deserve.”

Anger flared through Prairie, and she scowled. “Don’t say that.” she said fiercely. “Don’t. I forgave you, Hap, for all of it. I forgave you a long time ago.” Everything he’d done had brought her to this moment, and she couldn’t really bring herself to resent him for any of it. What he’d done was terrible, yes, but leading with love had always been Prairie’s specialty, from the time some kid had bullied her for her blindness in high school. To Nancy’s and Abel’s utter shock, she’d given the boy a hug in the principal's office.

Maybe Hap needed a bit more than a single hug, but every memory she’d thought of in her near-death moments, every look, every kiss, every touch--he was worth it. There was a sensation like a balloon swelling up under her ribs, sending her stomach quivering and her heart skipping beats. She wanted to wrap her arms around Hap and not let him go, she wanted his lips on hers and she wanted to wake up every day for the rest of her life in his arms. “I love you,” she confessed, tears stinging at her eyes for no reason.

Shock, amazement, relief...and was that love, reflected back at her in Hap’s eyes? He surprised her, rolling suddenly so that he was the one lying atop her, and she squeaked briefly, earning a little smile at the corners of his lips. He hesitated, his thumb smoothing absently over her waist, and she waited there patiently, watching him with love in her eyes.

“I love you,” Hap murmured back after a pause, and she barely had time to register it and smile before he was jumping up and standing, gathering up his pants. “Stay here.”

Prairie watched the conflict on his face, sitting up in the middle of the bed, and he paused in the doorway, still buttoning his trousers. “Or...you don’t have to, Prairie.”

“I’ll be right here,” she promised him automatically with a little smile.

Prairie lay on her stomach after he left the room, shoving her face into one of his pillows and squeezing her eyes shut, listening. She heard the click of the basement door opening, and then silence for too long, and then what could only be Homer raising hell.

“ _Prairie!_ No, you bastard--- _Prairie!_ ”

A muffled sob escaped her into the pillow, not for what she was losing but for the pain she was causing him, for the choice he would never understand, for what could have been.

She didn’t move for god only knew how long, hugging Hap’s pillow and blocking out the world, and she flinched at the touch on her shoulder blade.

“Prairie,” Hap murmured, and she turned to look at him, wiping tears from her reddened face. His expression changed immediately. “Prairie, I’m--”

She shook her head, holding a hand out to him. “It’s okay,” she whispered, clearing her throat once. “I’m okay. I made my choice, I’m happy, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” It didn’t really matter if she was saying it for her or him in the end. The words did what they were meant to, for both of them.

Hap kicked off his trousers once more and slid back under the sheets beside her, gathering her up into his arms and holding on tight. Prairie pillowed her head on his bare chest with a smile, listening to the heartbeat she’d fallen in love with months ago. No machine this time, just Hap, and she fell asleep again with the only lullaby she’d ever need.

And when, hours later, it was her turn to watch him sleep, she watched over the darkened room with the loving presence of the Angel she was supposed to be. And when Hap stirred fitfully, still struggling with sleep, she smoothed her fingertips over his forehead, ironing out the anxious lines.

“Prairie?” Against her hand, he started to lift his head, sounding completely taken aback and confused, with an undercurrent of exhaustion running through his voice that broke her heart. More automatically than anything, her fingers slid through his hair again.

“I’m fine,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.” The words slipped out before she’d really thought about them. She ran her hand through his hair again, just praying he’d listen.

Because she was. And somehow they were going to be fine together. She knew it like she knew about the events in any of her dreams; they were going to make it. Prairie closed her own eyes softly beside him, her hand laced in his.  


End file.
